Not going to get too bent out of shape over this one. 1st game of the year, lots of new faces, chemistry will take some time. Penguins took advantage of the Devils defensive lapses, credit to them. A bit annoying how much this game resembled last season with all the "puck luck" going against the Devils but it's just 1 game. I can see this team struggling a bit early in the year and taking off a bit late once they get chemistry.

Really liked Clowe standing up for Salvador at the end of the 1st and Brunner with 8 shots was awesome.

Another bad game by Gionta. 0/7 in faceoffs, 0 shots, -2, defensive lapses that helped lead to goals against. Hope Josefson is in tomorrow.

Larsson had a real rough game with some costly errors but it's only game 1 of his 3rd year. I'm sure he'll keep learning from his mistakes. He's only 20.

Easy to watch last night, feel discouraged, and start thinking "Same ol' Devils", but it's just way too early for that. Yeah, gotta see where they are after 20 games or so (provided they don't get off to a disastrous start before that). A lot of new faces that are going to need time to get used to playing with each other. No matter how ugly the first game of the season is (and last night wasn't THAT ugly...I've seen worse), I can't freak out about an 0-1-0 record, and start picking everything apart.

0

THE NHL MUST LOVE THE DEVILS - from who else? A RANGER fan![Mark Messier]: A big, bald attention whore with a stupid Easter Island-lookin face. - from who else? DaneykoIsGod!

Even when Marty comes back maybe Larry should put Clemmensen to be on the goal during the shootouts.Can the coach do that ? Switch the goalies 5 seconds to go in overtime? - Most priceless quote ever posted on a message board.

Martin Brodeur: THE MOST ALL-TIME WINS!, 12 straight seasons of 30+ wins, 3 Stanley Cups, 4 Vezina Trophies, and zero respect from too many so-called Devils "fans" who are either too young or too bandwagon to remember the much darker days of Sean Burke, Craig Billington, Bob Sauve, Alain Chevrier, and the talented but overwhelmed Chico Resch, among many others.

It's easy to support a great player when he's playing at his very best. It takes a true fan to support that same player during those rare moments and stretches when he's not. Babe Ruth went 0-4 some games, and sometimes Wayne Gretzky was held pointless. There may be such a thing as greatness, but no such thing as absolute perfection every single night.

#30 FOREVER!

20 out of 1,946 njdevs.com members agree: CR1976 is the Most Knowledgable Poster of 2008! Victory is mine...oh yes, victory is mine!

NEW JERSEY In keeping with the fact they are the Devils, New Jersey actually went with a villain by the name of Lex Lou-Lamoriello, an evil genius who finds ways to get around the salary cap until he is stopped in his tracks by Bett-man.

Larsson is actually very good at defensive positioning and rarely gets beat one on one. He's also got offensive upside as long as Pete lets him loose instead of being coddled. He's not gonna wow you with his game like Karlsson or Subban do. Quite frankly, Lidstrom didn't wow you either. There's a reason why people tell you to be patient with him. It's because defensemen do take longer to develop.

Larsson still makes incredible outlet passes. The trouble will be if he never gets any faster - I thought this would be the year where we'd see him start to get more agile, but it didn't look that way from Game 1. He did seem a little more confident on the puck though.

Fayne needs to get back in the lineup ASAP, he skates well and most of the Devils' D don't.

Henrique has to get used to being a winger, at least once he made a bad read on where he should be and missed an opportunity to enter the zone with speed.

I hate to think of where this team might be without Brunner, at least given how much he generated last night.

And of course the 4th line was hot garbage but with Gionta on it that's how it's going to be.

1. Larsson is hardly a bust, come on guys. He's got great vision, and he actually threw the body around a bit last night (one big crunch on Malkin comes to mind). He does, however, still look very slow. I was kinda hoping he had worked on his footspeed over the summer but it appears as if he's in the same place he was last year. Hopefully that changes..he looked confident last night though, which is always good.

2. D looked slow and a little rusty last night. Two pairings in particular (SPOILER ALERT: Salvador is on both of them) just didn't work. Salvador, Volch and Zid are just too freakin slow and should never be on the ice at the same time. I'll refer back to this in a bit, but it's hard to watch Salvador paired with either of these two on the ice. And teams with quick forwards like the Penguins will exploit this lack of speed all season long.

3. Early indications of this system are that there will be games like last year, where the Devils out-possess and out-shoot their opponents, but still lose the game. This will probably get all of us nice and pissed off, and it seems to be a byproduct of the Devils current lineup (aka, their lack of a pure goalscorer). I'm okay with this so long as they win more than they lose (obviously)

4. BUT, adjustments need to be made to the system. If you're going to dump every single play back to the point and crash all forwards to the net, you had best make damn sure the D get the shot through. And, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the Devils seem keen on having Salvador and Volch (the LD's) take the shot. And, surprise surprise, they can't get the shots through to the net. It's a recipe for disaster - slow Dmen throw the puck towards the net, it's blocked and turned over by the circles, and it's an odd man rush the other way (with the forwards caught deep) that the slow D have no hope of effectively defending. If you're going to play this system, at least have Zid, Greene, maybe Larsson taking the shot if possible.

5. For the forwards: a) Henrique's lack of finishing ability shines again b) I liked Brunner's game, lots of shots c) Lokti looks great. If he's scratched for Josefon while Gionta plays I might lose my mind d) Zajac and Henrique on the same line is a complete waste when you don't have anyone else who can win faceoffs on the top 3 lines e) Gionta is horrible, and it's great that Chico is spewing his "whole is greater than the sum!" nonsense about the CBGB line f) I'm not sure how I feel about Clowe, to be honest. Seems so slow, and he doesn't need to be fighting anymore.

The Penguins pressured the right point harder than they do the left point. They want the Devils to funnel the puck that way. This is where they miss Tallinder - he wasn't exactly Paul Coffey back there but he was certainly better at puck handling than Volchenkov or Salvador.

1. Larsson is hardly a bust, come on guys. He's got great vision, and he actually threw the body around a bit last night (one big crunch on Malkin comes to mind). He does, however, still look very slow. I was kinda hoping he had worked on his footspeed over the summer but it appears as if he's in the same place he was last year. Hopefully that changes..he looked confident last night though, which is always good.

2. D looked slow and a little rusty last night. Two pairings in particular (SPOILER ALERT: Salvador is on both of them) just didn't work. Salvador, Volch and Zid are just too freakin slow and should never be on the ice at the same time. I'll refer back to this in a bit, but it's hard to watch Salvador paired with either of these two on the ice. And teams with quick forwards like the Penguins will exploit this lack of speed all season long.

3. Early indications of this system are that there will be games like last year, where the Devils out-possess and out-shoot their opponents, but still lose the game. This will probably get all of us nice and pissed off, and it seems to be a byproduct of the Devils current lineup (aka, their lack of a pure goalscorer). I'm okay with this so long as they win more than they lose (obviously)

4. BUT, adjustments need to be made to the system. If you're going to dump every single play back to the point and crash all forwards to the net, you had best make damn sure the D get the shot through. And, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the Devils seem keen on having Salvador and Volch (the LD's) take the shot. And, surprise surprise, they can't get the shots through to the net. It's a recipe for disaster - slow Dmen throw the puck towards the net, it's blocked and turned over by the circles, and it's an odd man rush the other way (with the forwards caught deep) that the slow D have no hope of effectively defending. If you're going to play this system, at least have Zid, Greene, maybe Larsson taking the shot if possible.

5. For the forwards: a) Henrique's lack of finishing ability shines again b) I liked Brunner's game, lots of shots c) Lokti looks great. If he's scratched for Josefon while Gionta plays I might lose my mind d) Zajac and Henrique on the same line is a complete waste when you don't have anyone else who can win faceoffs on the top 3 lines e) Gionta is horrible, and it's great that Chico is spewing his "whole is greater than the sum!" nonsense about the CBGB line f) I'm not sure how I feel about Clowe, to be honest. Seems so slow, and he doesn't need to be fighting anymore.

In bold...I'm not going to lie...this is the word that kept popping into my head last night, as I watched...it seemed like everything the Devils were doing was happening so S-L-O-W-L-Y, especially that first period. They'll have some tough nights here and there, but the second and third periods were encouraging...there's been some Devils teams in the not-too-distant past (especially come playoff time) that would have looked two-to-three steps slower for the duration of the entire game.

0

THE NHL MUST LOVE THE DEVILS - from who else? A RANGER fan![Mark Messier]: A big, bald attention whore with a stupid Easter Island-lookin face. - from who else? DaneykoIsGod!

Even when Marty comes back maybe Larry should put Clemmensen to be on the goal during the shootouts.Can the coach do that ? Switch the goalies 5 seconds to go in overtime? - Most priceless quote ever posted on a message board.

Martin Brodeur: THE MOST ALL-TIME WINS!, 12 straight seasons of 30+ wins, 3 Stanley Cups, 4 Vezina Trophies, and zero respect from too many so-called Devils "fans" who are either too young or too bandwagon to remember the much darker days of Sean Burke, Craig Billington, Bob Sauve, Alain Chevrier, and the talented but overwhelmed Chico Resch, among many others.

It's easy to support a great player when he's playing at his very best. It takes a true fan to support that same player during those rare moments and stretches when he's not. Babe Ruth went 0-4 some games, and sometimes Wayne Gretzky was held pointless. There may be such a thing as greatness, but no such thing as absolute perfection every single night.

#30 FOREVER!

20 out of 1,946 njdevs.com members agree: CR1976 is the Most Knowledgable Poster of 2008! Victory is mine...oh yes, victory is mine!

Couple more thoughts/observations about the loss:
1. Larsson is hardly a bust, come on guys. He's got great vision, and he actually threw the body around a bit last night (one big crunch on Malkin comes to mind). He does, however, still look very slow. I was kinda hoping he had worked on his footspeed over the summer but it appears as if he's in the same place he was last year. Hopefully that changes..he looked confident last night though, which is always good.

2. D looked slow and a little rusty last night. Two pairings in particular (SPOILER ALERT: Salvador is on both of them) just didn't work. Salvador, Volch and Zid are just too freakin slow and should never be on the ice at the same time. I'll refer back to this in a bit, but it's hard to watch Salvador paired with either of these two on the ice. And teams with quick forwards like the Penguins will exploit this lack of speed all season long.

3. Early indications of this system are that there will be games like last year, where the Devils out-possess and out-shoot their opponents, but still lose the game. This will probably get all of us nice and pissed off, and it seems to be a byproduct of the Devils current lineup (aka, their lack of a pure goalscorer). I'm okay with this so long as they win more than they lose (obviously)

4. BUT, adjustments need to be made to the system. If you're going to dump every single play back to the point and crash all forwards to the net, you had best make damn sure the D get the shot through. And, for reasons unbeknownst to me, the Devils seem keen on having Salvador and Volch (the LD's) take the shot. And, surprise surprise, they can't get the shots through to the net. It's a recipe for disaster - slow Dmen throw the puck towards the net, it's blocked and turned over by the circles, and it's an odd man rush the other way (with the forwards caught deep) that the slow D have no hope of effectively defending. If you're going to play this system, at least have Zid, Greene, maybe Larsson taking the shot if possible.

5. For the forwards: a) Henrique's lack of finishing ability shines again b) I liked Brunner's game, lots of shots c) Lokti looks great. If he's scratched for Josefon while Gionta plays I might lose my mind d) Zajac and Henrique on the same line is a complete waste when you don't have anyone else who can win faceoffs on the top 3 lines e) Gionta is horrible, and it's great that Chico is spewing his "whole is greater than the sum!" nonsense about the CBGB line f) I'm not sure how I feel about Clowe, to be honest. Seems so slow, and he doesn't need to be fighting anymore.

atleast i wasnt the only one who noticed clowe looked slow as all hell.. literally looked like he may have had cement in his skates.. he looked doofy and awkward, but hell i enjoyed watching him kick glass's ass so if the man wants to fight let em fight.. as long as he isnt going off and getting himself injured that is

I'm not sure how to say this in a more technical way, but to me it seems as if this system will ALWAYS yield high puck possession numbers. However most of the Devils time of possession and offensive zone time will come from cycling low along the boards and waiting for something to open up towards the middle, or moving the puck back up top for a point shot. Granted, those shots will get through sometimes, but without a defenceman with a big shot from the point it will never have to be respected by the opposition. And the way this team cycles hasn't (I include last season) produced a ton of QUALITY chances for these guys. Also, when you don't have a pest like Voldermort hanging out and able to cause havoc in front of the net, it becomes tough to get screens in front.

All that being said, I think there are two or three chances for the Devils in this one that , if they had capitalized, could have turned the game around (I'm already tired of thinking this). So, I'll chalk up Zid's and Henrique's inability to lift the puck to first game jitters/not playing for a few days.

If they go out and score a bit tonight, this is all forgotten and hopefully I can un-jumble all the thoughts in my head.

The trouble is who to pair Zids with if our stay at homes are just too slow and our kids are too stupid and undisciplined ... durrrr

Greene. If Greene can keep his head and stay aggressively at home not get caught up in the action. It's an art to be an aggressive mentally yet a STILL force out there. Just understanding what I just wrote is half the key too performing successfully.

You know - this is the thing. That's what Sal has to grasp. I think maybe Sal's problem is he's not excepting his limitations. Being slower and skills declining - it's an art to then move your game to something more mental. This team clearly has a mandate to work with Sal -- so the man has to learn to focus his brain more. He's NOT going to get any skills - that's DONE. So now he's got to keep his wits about him - it's critical he maintain mental discipline. He's got to start being benched if this has been explained to him and he's just not doing it. Otherwise how will he know he's failing? He'll just get that bad dog feeling and smell up the place worse and worse and that's just unfair and frankly more ugly than I want to see

I actually think he can be given the benefit of the doubt on his ability to discipline his mind, because I truly believe the staff has hung him out and keeps assuming he understands. Of course he's going to say the right things -- but I don't think he does completely. Old guy intuition is not the same as peak performance intuition. When he's sucking I bet he thinks he's just lost his groove -- he thinks once things slip into place he can then ride the wave of the intuitive play of his youth. SOOOO he's got to expect less of himself physically so he will do more with his brain, his focus. The clicking -- the groove will NOT click allowing him to relax. That's done for the rest of his career. He's got to always be PRODUCTIVELY in his head. Shaking it off is a whole new thing at this age, and he doesn't know that, and the constant failure and backlash from the crowd will take it's toll. So someone has to help him let go of his former intuition. It's the teams only hope since the young guys aren't ready to come up yet. **coughcough** Look -- this is the only way to work with him now -- that's it - no other tools at your disposal. If he's being kept for his mindset then obviously that's all you've got to work with. If it fvcks him all up, GOOD! THAT"S THE POINT IT'S THE ONLY WAY TO EXPOSE THE UNDERLYING ISSUE AND WHAT EVERYONE IS FREAKING OUT ABOUT WITH THE GUY. KNOW WHAT? THE TEAM HAS IS NOT BETTER AS IS. it's just not, so fix it or dump the trash please.

Marty on the other shoudl do NOTHING with his intuition -- not like he's reading this but --- he just needs to get a pair of glasses. Honestly - seeing Cory and knowing how it is ... I honestly think it's just that teeny difference in literal sight. hence he MUST trust his gut on these things now.

I'm not sure how to say this in a more technical way, but to me it seems as if this system will ALWAYS yield high puck possession numbers. However most of the Devils time of possession and offensive zone time will come from cycling low along the boards and waiting for something to open up towards the middle, or moving the puck back up top for a point shot. Granted, those shots will get through sometimes, but without a defenceman with a big shot from the point it will never have to be respected by the opposition. And the way this team cycles hasn't (I include last season) produced a ton of QUALITY chances for these guys. Also, when you don't have a pest like Voldermort hanging out and able to cause havoc in front of the net, it becomes tough to get screens in front.

All that being said, I think there are two or three chances for the Devils in this one that , if they had capitalized, could have turned the game around (I'm already tired of thinking this). So, I'll chalk up Zid's and Henrique's inability to lift the puck to first game jitters/not playing for a few days.

If they go out and score a bit tonight, this is all forgotten and hopefully I can un-jumble all the thoughts in my head.

If the Devils had a few more guys like Kovalchuk on the team, the system wouldn't yield high possession numbers. Indeed, until the Devils acquired Alexei Ponikarovsky the Devils were a break even territorial team in 2011-12. You need guys that can get the puck when they dump it in and can create shots off the cycle - not everyone can do that (again, Kovalchuk a prime example). *IF* you do that then sure, and the Devils have gotten plenty of forwards who can do that, but the goal isn't shots from the outside, that's just what was given to them last night after Pittsburgh got a 2-0 lead. The bigger problem is that the Devils drew one penalty when the game was within reach, and that seemed to be somewhat of a trend last year too. I know they finished above league average in penalty generation but you generate more penalties when behind.

It's hard to judge last night because the game was tied for what, 6 minutes? I agree that I didn't exactly like what I saw in the chances generation department but the Devils have gotten players who can play in front of the net (Clowe being one and indeed he got an incredible chance there and couldn't bury it). I do like that DeBoer praised Loktionov and had no praise for Gionta - a good sign that at least Loktionov should stay in the lineup.

we looked way slow on the back checking, yes the blocked point shots make for odd man rushes, but it was more than that, and there was very little devils cycling going on deep. hopefully this is new guys learni "the system"

I thought harrold was ok having to carry volch, he has some of the better escape moves on our D. jagr looks old and slow but the guy can still play top small area hockey once the rust comes off

"Quite frankly, all the players are getting paid too much and all the contracts are too long," general manager Lou Lamoriello said. "But if you want to compete in this market and you want to win, there are some things you have to do."